Seamus Heaney

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Standard Name: Heaney, Seamus
Birth Name: Seamus Justin Heaney
SH was the pre-eminent Irish poet of his generation, writing in a lucid style which is often dazzling and never obscure. A highly visible international figure in the later twentieth century and beyond, he was famously described by Robert Lowell as the most important Irish poet since Yeats . As well as his best-selling poetry volumes he published reviews, criticism, and dramatic writing.
McGreevy, Ronan. “Tributes paid to keeper of language Seamus Heaney”. The Irish Times, 30 Aug. 2013.
Fox, Margaret, journalist, and James, Jr McKinley. “Keeper of the Irish Essence”. The Globe and Mail, 31 Aug. 2013, p. S12.
Colour photo of Seamus Heaney taken at University College Dublin, 11 February 2009. He looks ahead, with a weather-beaten face, tousled white hair, and side-burns. He wears rimless glasses, and a tweed jacket over a blue shirt and tie.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Instructor Medbh McGuckian
At university, she was taught by Seamus Heaney , and met other poets including Michael Longley , Paul Muldoon , and Ciaran Carson . Her MA thesis on Irish nineteenth-century writers and Gothic fiction dealt...
Instructor Eavan Boland
While she was at Trinity College she was taught by the poet Seamus Heaney .
Welch, Robert, and Bruce Stewart, editors. The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. Clarendon, 1996.
52
Intertextuality and Influence Catherine Byron
As an Irish poet, CB takes inspiration from traditional tales and myths, and from such Irish writers as W. B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney (though she does not consider either of them as role models...
Intertextuality and Influence Catherine Byron
Reflections on her own life are intertwined throughout CB 's journey, as she writes on her childhood experience of Catholicism, and her roles as mother, wife, lover, and Irish woman writer.
Byron, Catherine. Out of Step. Loxwood Stoneleigh, 1992.
passim
She deals trenchantly...
Intertextuality and Influence Gillian Clarke
These complex poems share a deceptively simple surface. The title poem, about a day spent tending a sick child, is said by M. Wynn Thomas to mark the genesis of GC 's poetry, as an...
Intertextuality and Influence Medbh McGuckian
MMG found the literary activity while she was at university very formative to her work, and notes that poets such as Seamus Heaney (her teacher), Michael Longley , Paul Muldoon , and Ciaran Carson all...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Bishop
The strength of EB 's influence on British and Irish poetry was variously recognised during the 1980s by Andrew Motion , Seamus Heaney , James Fenton , and Eavan Boland , and during the 1990s...
Literary responses Elizabeth Jennings
Seamus Heaney reviewed this book among a batch of others for the Times Literary Supplement. He welcomed the book's freedom from sensationalism or self-pity, but found the poems over-restrained(perhaps by the stranglehold of strictly...
Literary responses Medbh McGuckian
It bore an endorsement from Seamus Heaney : Her language is like the inner lining of consciousness.
qtd. in
The Gallery Press. http://www.gallerypress.com/home.html.
Literary responses Eavan Boland
The reception of this volume sealed EB 's reputation; but reviewers continued to define her by comparison with other, better-known poets like Adrienne Rich and Seamus Heaney .
Boland, Eavan. In a Time of Violence. Norton, 1994.
jacket
This was the third of her...
Occupation Elizabeth Bishop
After a six-month appointment at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1966, EB went on to teach on and off for years at Harvard and briefly at New York University .
Astley, Neil. “Elizabeth Bishop: A Bibliography; Elizabeth Bishop: Chronology”. Elizabeth Bishop: Poet of the Periphery, edited by Linda Anderson and Jo Shapcott, Bloodaxe Books, 2002, pp. 175-00.
198, 199, 200
Publishing Catherine Byron
CB co-edited a poetry anthology with John Lyons , entitled Northern Poetry, Volume1, in 1989. She reviews children's literature and poetry for the Times Educational Supplement. Authors she has reviewed there include Seamus Heaney
Publishing John Millington Synge
A paperback edition from Serif published in 2005 bears on its back cover a passage in which Seamus Heaney writes with sympathetic imagination of Synge: Loneliness / Was his passport through the world.
Serif. Serif, 2007–2010, http://www.serifbooks.co.uk/.
Synge, John Millington. Travels in Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara. Serif, 2005.
Reception Eavan Boland
In 1999 EB 's work was included as required reading, along with the work of Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley , for the Leaving Certificate for secondary school students across Ireland.
Allen Randolph, Jody. A Backward Look: An Interview with Eavan Boland, December 1999. http://www.carcanet.co.uk/.
Reception Frances Horovitz
Martin Booth printed 550 copies of the collection. Fifty of these were signed by the contributors, who included Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes .
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
The poets concerned gave a public reading from the volume on...

Timeline

1998-9: In a league table of sales in verse for these...

Writing climate item

1998-9

In a league table of sales in verse for these years, published by the Guardian in October 2000, Ted Hughes was the highest with 172,174, Seamus Heaney second with 34,690, and Carol Ann Duffy third...

Texts

Beowulf. Translator Heaney, Seamus, Faber, 1999.
Heaney, Seamus. Death of a Naturalist. Faber, 1966.
Heaney, Seamus. District and Circle. Faber, 2006.
Heaney, Seamus. Door into the Dark. Faber, 1969.
Heaney, Seamus. Field Work. Faber, 1979.
Heaney, Seamus. Finders Keepers. Faber, 2002.
Heaney, Seamus. Human Chain. Faber, 2010.
Heaney, Seamus. New Selected Poems 1966-1987. Faber, 1990.
Heaney, Seamus. North. Faber, 1975.
Heaney, Seamus. Preoccupations. Faber, 1980.
Heaney, Seamus. Seeing Things. Faber, 1991.
Heaney, Seamus. Selected Poems 1965-1975. Faber, 1980.
Heaney, Seamus. Station Island. Faber, 1984.
Heaney, Seamus. Sweeney Astray. Field Day, 1983.
Heaney, Seamus. The Cure at Troy. Field Day, 1990.
Heaney, Seamus. The Government of the Tongue. Faber, 1988.
Heaney, Seamus. The Haw Lantern. Faber, 1987.
Heaney, Seamus, and Ted Hughes, editors. The Rattle Bag. Faber, 1982.
Heaney, Seamus. The Redress of Poetry. Faber, 1995.
Heaney, Seamus, and Ted Hughes, editors. The School Bag. Faber, 1997.
Heaney, Seamus. The Spirit Level. Faber, 1996.
Heaney, Seamus. Wintering Out. Faber, 1972.